With stable employment exceedingly difficult to come by, intellectually disabled adults have another, occasionally lucrative, way of participating in American society: they can become artists.
On a Monday morning in early June, Nicole Storm arrived at the Creative Growth Art Center in downtown Oakland, California. Light poured in through broad windows that faced the street. Nicole put her jacket and lunch away in the closet and then selected a large piece of cardboard from a stack in a hallway. A staff member helped her secure the makeshift canvas to an easel and set out her paints and markers. She chatted with some fellow artists and then explained to me that she is starting a new project, after having finished a few paintings last week. Nicole refers to her artistic process as “taking notes.” It is a way for her to organize the events of a day, although the results never look like a typical archive or journal. She creates bright washes of color that provide a glowing background for lines and shapes that appear like an indeterminate form of writing. Nicole records what is going on around her with marks that may initially seem impulsive and spontaneous. But they are the culmination of a well-honed practice, undeniable creativity, and decades of sustained work.
Nicole was born in 1967, during what her mother, Diane, refers to as “the tail end of the Dark Ages,” when someone like Nicole, who has Down syndrome, would almost certainly have lived her entire life in an institution. At that time, Diane recalls, “I sent away for some information about Down syndrome and what I got was bleak. The life expectancy was twelve years. Fifty percent of people were dead before their fifth birthday. So I threw that stuff in the trash and decided to do it my way.”
Diane and Nicole are closer than most mothers and their adult daughters. They live together, and Diane volunteers once a week at Creative Growth when Nicole is there. Nicole inherited Diane’s round face and direct stare. They both speak with a great deal of confidence. Diane attributes Nicole’s confidence to how she “ran with the pack” as a kid; she was thrown into the deep end of progressive schools that included her with the rest of the students. Diane’s confidence developed out of her fierce advocacy for Nicole and a lifetime of fighting with bureaucratic systems that did little more than tell her what her daughter would not be able to do. I mentioned to Diane that my daughter, like Nicole, has Down syndrome. “You know how it goes then,” she said. “We had no support when she was growing up, but I’m sure your daughter has a bright future.”
Diane is right. My daughter is part of a generation with more opportunities to attend school with her peers, although she still faces plenty of challenges. I hope she might be able to find a job and work in a supportive community. But historically our society has expected very little of people with intellectual disabilities, which makes Nicole’s success as an artist all the more remarkable.
When Nicole was in her twenties, Diane searched for a day program that Nicole could attend while she worked full-time. But they struggled to find a suitable situation that met Nicole’s need for routine and predictability. She spent most of her days on public transportation. Diane recalled a time when Nicole traveled with a group to an event at a library in Berkeley, only to have to catch another bus fifteen minutes later to come back home. Eventually Nicole moved into a group home for people with disabilities, where she lived in an apartment with the help of support staff. Both Nicole and Diane believed this was the independence Nicole deserved. But after two and a half years, she wasn’t thriving. Nicole wasn’t developing much of a life outside her apartment, and the support staff wasn’t as attentive as Diane had expected. After Nicole became seriously ill with pneumonia, they decided they had had enough. Nicole went back to living with Diane. An artist friend told them about Creative Growth, and Nicole started attending the program regularly. The new sense of routine and purpose transformed her almost overnight.
“It was the most wonderful moment,” Nicole remembered.
“You’re right,” said Diane. “That’s when the magic started to happen.”
Installation view of Nicole Storm’s exhibit at White Columns, New York, 2021.
Read the rest over at The Believer.